Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf Celebrates 70 Years Of Industry Service

Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf is celebrating 70 years of excellent service that it has provided to the maritime industry.

The major features of the operations of the yard since the last seven decades have been short turnaround times, knowledge from its personnel and a focus on the needs of the clients.

Oranjewerf is located north of Amsterdam and near the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal and the North Sea Canal. This significant location is an important factor for its success and also helped it serve both the inland and seagoing shipping sectors.

The services that are provided by the yard have not changed a lot since it’s set up. It was founded by a group of local shipping companies and shipyards in 1949. The basic goal of the yard is to provide both inland and coastal vessels with repair services.

Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf became a part of the Damen Shipyards Group in 1989 and since then it has been able to get a lot of experience to work continuously for a number of maritime markets.

The workforce of the yard is very skillful. This is shown by the term for which it’s teams have been working. Some are working for over 20 years and one of them for 40 years.

About 2,400 inland cruise vessels visit Amsterdam annually thus, making inland cruise sector important for Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf. “About 25 to 30 of these come to us and Damen Shiprepair Amsterdam for some sort of docking,” says Jeen van der Werf, sales manager at the yard.

The most common requirement of the clients is fast turnaround. Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf can bring this down to less than six hours.

“This is our specialty – inland cruise vessel operators can drop passengers off at nine in the morning for a nice day exploring Amsterdam, and then be in our drydock at ten o’clock. We make sure that the work is done in time so that the vessel can pick up the passengers at three in the afternoon.”

Damen Shiprepair Oranjewerf works with inland cruise vessels in the off-peak season however, this is especially for more time consuming works like special surveys or more intense maintenance tasks. One dry dock (135 x 23 metres, with a 6,000 tonne capacity) and one slipway (100 x 11 metres, 1,500 tonne capacity) is used by the yard for all its work.

Efficient Communication

By joining hands with the Damen Shipyards Group, the coverage of the yard expanded to many more maritime sectors. This comprises clients from the offshore industry along with those that are operating out of IJmuiden and Den Helder and also the ships operating in the dredginy and cargo sectors.

Mr Van der Werf also mentioned that the location of the yard is not the only thing that brings the clients back again and again. “They also love how we work – we have just four people in management so our lines of communication are inherently short.”

“While it is possible to offer clients a docking position at another yard in the Damen Shipyards Group, they are mostly happy wait until the dock is available again. This is because we have excellent relationships with our clients. They know we work, and they want to come here. Each client has their own approach. We serve our customers 24 hours a day.”

Reference: damen